Thursday, August 31, 2017

At the first Labor Day parade on Tuesday, Sept. 5, 1882, about 10,000
working men carrying banners marched alongside musical bands through the
streets of New York City.

The workers were orderly and cheerful, “having the recreations of a beer
garden in prospect,” The New York Times reported. Among their long-term dreams that
day was something we take for granted: an eight-hour work day.

The size of the crowd was disappointing – union leaders had predicted 20,000
or more would show up – but Labor Day caught on. Unions in other cities sponsored
Labor Day parades and speeches to air their grievances. The first state to
declare an official Labor Day holiday was Oregon in 1887. Other states
followed.

Were it not for President Grover Cleveland, though, many of us still might
be toiling the first Monday in September.

Cleveland, you recall, was our 22nd and 24th
president, the only one elected to two non-consecutive terms, in 1884 and 1892.
The first Democratic president since the Civil War, he was the first to have a White
House wedding. His bride was the beautiful Frances Folsom, 21 years old, 27
years his junior.

Politically and socially conservative, he opposed women’s suffrage on the
grounds that God created men and women to have different places in the world
and women’s didn’t include voting. But I digress.

He was also no fan of the turbulent labor movement, so it’s ironic that
we have him to thank for the federal Labor Day holiday.

In 1894, the Pullman Palace Car strike paralyzed the nation. Workers who
made the luxury sleeper cars walked out after they suffered a severe pay cut
but no reduction in their rent on company-owned homes in the company town of
Pullman, Illinois, outside Chicago.

The workers appealed to the American Railway Union led by Eugene V. Debs,
who asked his members not to handle Pullman cars, which were in passenger
trains all over the country.

The strike spread to 27 states and 150,000 workers. Strikers derailed and
burned rail cars, hobbling rail service. When the U.S. mail was stopped,
Cleveland stepped in.

Over the objection of the Illinois governor who wanted no federal troops,
Cleveland ordered 12,000 armed federal troops to Pullman to break up the
strike. In the riots and chaos that ensued, it’s not clear how many people were
killed. Estimates range from about a dozen to more than 30.

Cleveland was running for re-election in 1896 and wanted to make amends
with union members and other angry
voters. A bill to create a federal Labor Day holiday had languished in Congress
for years. He rushed it through Congress in six days. It passed without a
single objection.

“So long as the laboring man can feel that he holds an honorable as well
as a useful place in the body politic, so long will he be a loyal and faithful
citizen,” said the House Committee on Labor’s report on the bill.

Critics saw the new holiday as nothing more than a sop for unions, but it
was popular.

“Labor unions in cities such as Boston, Nashville and St. Louis
celebrated with parades and picnics. Large turnouts in Chicago (30,000) and
Baltimore (10,000) underscored the holiday’s popularity,” according to a House history.

But it didn’t help Cleveland. He lost his re-election bid.

Much has changed over the years. Unions have been in decline for decades.
Only about 11 percent of American workers belonged to labor unions last year,
down from 20 percent in 1983.

In Virginia, about 4 percent of workers were union members last year, according
to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Conservatives aim to curb union power further. Republicans in the House
Education and Workforce Committee unanimously approved three bills June 29 they
said would bring fairness to the workplace. Democrats said the bills would make
it more difficult for unions to organize workers.

For us, Labor Day weekend is less to honor the working man and woman than
to celebrate at the unofficial end of summer, although, we too may have “the
recreations of a beer garden in prospect.”

Thursday, August 24, 2017

When San Francisco 49ers quarterback
Colin Kaepernick refused to stand for the national anthem last year, some conservatives
boycotted the National Football League.

Angry at what they saw as unpatriotic
behavior, veterans and others rallied around the hashtag #BoycottNFL. Sen. Ted
Cruz, Republican of Texas, tweeted: “Here’s a peaceful protest: never buy
another shoe, shirt, or jersey of rich spoiled athletes who dishonor our flag.”

Now the tables have turned.

The Atlanta chapter of the NAACP recently
asked fans to boycott the NFL and a group of black pastors in Alabama released
a video calling for a blackout of NFL games until a team signs Kaepernick.

Kaepernick kneeled during the anthem to
protest police brutality against blacks. Other athletes joined in, and the
protests have continued in the pre-season, with white players taking part. A
free agent, Kaepernick hasn’t been signed for the season that begins Sept. 7.

A huge crowd of Kaepernick supporters
protested outside NFL offices in New York Wednesday, contending owners have blackballed
him for his activism, which the league denies.

This is the age of voting with our
wallets.

Fans of Donald Trump boycotted
Budweiser over its inspirational Super Bowl ad praising immigrants. Trump’s foes
boycotted L. L. Bean after the granddaughter of the company’s founder
contributed to his campaign and Trump urged people to “Buy L.L. Bean.”

People similarly shopped or stayed
away from Macy’s and Nordstrom after the stores dumped some Trump merchandise.
Social media and sites like grab-your-wallet.com, which lists stores that carry
Trump merchandise, give boycotts more exposure.

“I don’t think I’ve
ever seen as many boycotts announced in a short period of time,” says Brayden
King, professor of management and organizations at Northwestern
University.

Boycotts -- more than marching in the
streets or firing off an angry screed on social media -- make us feel powerful.
There’s something immensely satisfying about just saying no and walking away.

Only one problem: Boycotts typically don’t
accomplish much.

Not all are failures. The Montgomery
(Ala.) bus boycott started in December 1955 and lasted 13 months. It ended when
the U.S. Supreme Court ruled segregation on public buses unconstitutional.

Viewership of NFL games on TV
networks dipped last year, but the national anthem protest was only one reason,
a J.D. Power survey of fans found. Off-field domestic violence and the presidential
campaign were also factors.

Experts say boycotts fail because there
are too many of them, our attention span is short and we simply don’t like to
be told what not to do or buy. A boycott perversely can generate more sales for
the item being boycotted.

Despite Uber’s many PR catastrophes
and boycotts, its gross bookings and number of trips taken have risen,
according to news reports.

Rather than judge a boycott’s impact
on sales, it may be better to judge its media attention, King said.

Several Kennedy Center Honors award
winners announced they’d boycott the pre-ceremony reception at the White House
or the event itself. They include hit singer
Gloria Estefan, TV producer Norman Lear and dancer Carmen de Lavallade.

The president and first lady announced
they’ll stay away “to allow the honorees to celebrate without any political
distraction,” Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement.

At least 20 charities
reportedly have dropped plans to hold galas at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s resort in
Florida. Among the big names that have canceled: American Red Cross, America
Cancer Society, Cleveland Clinic and the Salvation Army.

“Charities hosting large galas can pay Trump's club between
$125,000 and $275,000 for a single night's revelry. Even lunchtime events can
cost charities between $25,000 and $85,000,” The Washington Post reported.

Why charitable organizations choose such
pricey locales for their fund-raising events, even if they do raise big bucks,
is a question for another day. But the cancellations do send a message of
disapproval to others inclined to book Mar-a-Largo.

“If you have a conscience, you’re really
condoning bad behavior by continuing to be there,” Laurel Baker, executive
director of the Palm Beach Chamber of Commerce, told the Palm Beach Post.

The boycott affects a prized Trump
property, and that’s a sure way to grab the businessman’s attention.

But will it change the president’s policies?
That will be the true measure of the boycott’s success.

In the wake of the deadly violence in Charlottesville
last weekend, Richmond is rethinking whether to remove the Confederate statues
on Monument Avenue. Other Southern cities are taking similar actions and renaming
Confederate schools and highways.

The rally in Charlottesville was ostensibly to protest
removing the statue of Robert E. Lee in a city park but actually was a way for
hate mongers to hurt others, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe said, and for them to
gain worldwide attention and recruits.

Heather Heyer, 32, lost her life when a Nazi
sympathizer allegedly drove his car into a crowd of peaceful
counter-protesters.

President Donald Trump alienated almost everyone but
David Duke, former imperial wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, when he blamed “both
sides” – white nationalists and counter-protesters -- for the violence and
criticized efforts to remove Confederate monuments. Some “very fine” people were at the white supremacist rally, he said.

Trump Thursday denied he had said there was a moral
equivalence between white nationalist protesters and counter-protesters. He
also tweeted he’s “sad to see the history and culture of our great country
ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments.”

Tweet by tweet, Trump is building a wall – not on the
border but between himself and most Americans.

A president should inspire and lead, but Trump has
made himself almost irrelevant on moral questions of the day. The two living former
Republican presidents were so alarmed by Trump’s comments they felt obliged to
remind Americans of our shared values.

“America must always reject racial bigotry,
anti-Semitism, and hatred in all forms,” Presidents George W. and George H.W.
Bush said in their joint statement Wednesday.

“As we pray for Charlottesville, we are reminded of
the fundamental truths recorded by that city’s most prominent citizen in the Declaration
of Independence: We are all created equal and endowed by our Creator with
unalienable rights,” the Bushes said.

Groups like the UDC and Sons of Confederate Veterans
have relied for years on the argument that Confederate monuments represent
their heritage, not hate, but they have not spoken out forcefully enough
against those who have appropriated their heroes and symbols.

The bishops of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia wrote
in a letter to parishioners this week:

“Many Americans lovingly cling to their heritage,
which provides them with pride and identity. Some suggest that the white people
who gathered to protest in Charlottesville were there to proclaim and protect
Southern heritage. However, Nazi and fascist flags, symbols, salutes, slogans and
uniforms are not and never have been part of the heritage and history of the
American South.”

What Trump did not say, corporate leaders did.

“Racism and murder are unequivocally reprehensible and
are not morally equivalent to anything else that happened in Charlottesville. I
believe the president should have been – and still needs to be – unambiguous
about that point,” Denise Morrison, president and chief executive of Campbell’s
Soup, said in her statement resigning from Trump’s Manufacturing Jobs Initiative.

Republicans have been reluctant to confront Trump by
name, but House Speaker Paul Ryan said there can be “no moral ambiguity” when
it comes to the “repulsive” ideology of white supremacy.

Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida fired off a series
of tweets that began: “The organizers of events which inspired & led to
Charlottesville terrorist attack are 100% to blame for a number of reasons.”

What’s next? Removing the Confederate monuments is a
first step, but it will take more to heal the nation. It will take all of us.

“You need to find in your heart that spark of
accountability,” Susan Bro, Heyer’s mom, said at her daughter’s memorial
service. “`What is there that I can do to make the world a better place? What
injustice do I see?’”

By the end of the year, Texas plans to open the nation’s first state-supervised gold and silver depository, allowing ordinary Texans, as well as businesses, banks and others, to store their precious metals, and use the holdings in their account to make electronic payments.

“The idea of a Texas Ranger on horseback guarding the gold conjures up the sense that whatever happens, Texas will look out for your treasure,” said Chris Bryan, spokesman for the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts.

The whole scene may sound like something from an earlier era. But it’s part of a growing, modern movement across the United States, brought on by economic anxiety and distrust of the Federal Reserve, to make gold and silver legal tender.

Since 2003, lawmakers in 27 states have considered bills to recognize gold or silver coins issued by the federal government as legal tender or to authorize a precious metals bullion depository in the state, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. So far only Utah in 2011, Oklahoma in 2014 and Arizona this year have recognized gold and silver coins as legal tender, while Texas in 2015 and Tennessee last year approved measures allowing bullion depositories.

The financial crisis of 2008 and 2009 appears to have spurred interest in such “sound money” legislation, according to William L. Greene, an assistant professor of political science at South Texas College. Greene, who has studied the bills, pushed a proposal in Georgia that would have bound the state to Article I, Section 10 of the Constitution, which states that “No State shall ... make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts.”

States have taken other steps that may encourage people and businesses to think of precious metals as a viable alternative to the paper dollars issued by the Federal Reserve and not just as a collector’s item. Thirty-one states have eliminated part or all state sales taxes on transactions involving silver and gold coins, giving them the same tax status as transactions in dollars, according to the Industry Council for Tangible Assets, which works with coin dealers to pass exemption laws.

Illinois, California and Washington state began lowering sales taxes on coins and precious metals in the late 1970s. The trend has picked up steam since 2010, said Kathy McFadden, executive director of the tangible assets group. Louisiana reinstated almost all of its sales tax exemption this year, while Minnesota and North Carolina approved exemptions, and Virginia expanded its exemption.

In Utah and Oklahoma, people can now transact business with like-minded gold enthusiasts. Anyone in any state can open a self-directed IRA with physical gold, but proponents believe more people will do so in states that put gold and silver coins on a par with paper money. Gold-backed trading accounts are available in Utah, and gold-backed debit cards will become commonplace, proponents say.

But even in those states, you can’t necessarily buy a steak dinner with a couple of American Eagle gold coins, because the state doesn’t compel merchants to accept gold or silver coins instead of dollars.

In Utah and Oklahoma, the tax collector doesn’t want them either. A Utah man tried to pay his taxes with silver soon after the law went into effect, but, said State Treasurer David Damschen, “That’s not how it works. If you owe $500 in taxes and you walk in here with two sheep you say are worth $500, we aren’t going to take them either.”

But over time, Greene said, as residents use both bank notes and silver and gold coins, the fact that the coins hold their value more than paper dollars “will drive out ‘bad’ money.”

In Utah, Jonathan Johnson, the chairman of Overstock.com and a 2016 Republican gubernatorial candidate, in 2015 said his company had stockpiled enough small coins in gold and silver to pay employees for several months in case of bank failures or currency problems.

Alabama, Idaho, Kentucky and Tennessee were among the states that considered tax exemption bills this year. A bill in Utah proposed requiring the state to hold physical gold reserves in a state repository, and one in New Hampshire would have mandated that state legislators receive their annual $100 payment in silver dollar coins. The state treasury noted that while the face value of a silver dollar was $1, the spot value of the coins varies and was $16.47 in January.

A Fringe Issue

Gold as legal tender has long been regarded as a fringe issue, championed by former U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas. But dedicated lobbyists, Tea Party activists and businesspeople have persevered.

Coin dealers in Ohio worked for nine years to get a sales tax exemption, Coin Worldreported. Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a Republican, signed the bill last year after vetoing a similar bill three years earlier.

In 2013 Kasich said, “There is no reason to provide preferential treatment to one class of items and not others that could possibly increase in value, such as art, sports cards, or antiques. Therefore, this veto is in the public interest.”

The measure is expected to cost Ohio from $4.3 million to $5.7 million in lost sales tax revenue this year.

In Indiana last year, then-Gov. Mike Pence, a Republican, also signed a bill eliminating sales taxes for silver and gold coins and bullion. That measure was estimated to cost the state about $1.5 million in revenue a year, although the estimate could be low, budget analysts said.

Some states were unprepared to assess how much the measures will cost.

Oklahoma previously lumped together gold jewelry and coins in reporting sales tax revenue and couldn’t separate the two to estimate the cost of the 2014 law that exempted gold and silver bars and coins from sales tax, said Tony Mastin, executive director of the Oklahoma Tax Commission.

Oklahoma plans a review of all the tax exemptions next year, but Mastin does not expect the revenue lost because of the gold and silver tax break to be consequential.

“There are not a lot of sellers of gold coins and bars in the state,” he said.

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, vetoed two gold-related bills and his predecessor, Republican Gov. Jan Brewer, vetoed one before Ducey signed a scaled down version in May. Arizona’s law eliminates state capital gains taxes on gold and silver coins.

“Arizona law now recognizes that, in the state, U.S. Mint coins are legal tender that can be exchanged for Federal Reserve notes,” said state Rep. Mark Finchem, the Republican who sponsored the bill.

‘A Giveaway’

But Arizona state Sen. Steve Farley, a Democrat who’s running for governor, called the tax break a giveaway to coin collectors. “It disadvantages all other forms of investment — and only coin collectors benefit.”

Republicans have long wished for a return to the gold standard, which fixed the price of the dollar to a specific amount of gold. President Richard Nixon ended the final vestiges of the gold standard in 1971. President Ronald Reagan had a commission to study the issue but decided against a return. He signed legislation authorizing the mint to produce gold and silver coins starting in 1986.

The Republican Party’s 2012 and 2016 platforms called for a commission to investigate returning to the gold standard. Before he became president, Donald Trump told GQ that returning to the gold standard would be very hard to do, “But, boy, would it be wonderful.”

Gold enthusiasts argue that gold holds its value when the dollar is buffeted and the economy tanks, although its price can and has dropped. The mint’s coins vary in price weekly.

“Gold is the most stable thing in the economic world right now,” said Keith Weiner, president of a precious metals firm and of the Gold Standard Institute, which promotes the use of gold as currency. “Some way, somehow, someday we will have a gold standard.”

Thursday, August 10, 2017

With all the saber-rattling between the United States
and North Korea, I almost couldn’t hear the dogs next door barking. Almost.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Americans should
sleep well at night, untroubled by the escalating rhetoric over nukes, but I
doubt he’s ever tried to relax to the noise of yapping dogs.

My neighbor Paul has two sweet dogs, three if you
count the long-term lodger, but they bark a lot, especially when he’s out.

Naturally, I was more than a little interested in the
news this week from Amazon.

Amazon-owned Audible – a digital book-listening
service whose slogan is “You don’t just listen to an Audible book, you feel it”
-- launched an audiobooks for dogs service, Audible for Dogs. It more
accurately could be called Guilt Begone.

“I’m always looking for ways where people don’t feel
guilty, worried or stressed when they leave their dogs alone,” dog behaviorist Cesar
Millan told USA Today. Millan, known as the “Dog Whisperer,” “curated” a list
of human audiobooks he says will help calm a pup who’s left home alone.

Among the titles: Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice,”
A.A. Milne’s “Winnie the Pooh” and Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn.” They’re not all classics, though. The bestseller “Born a
Crime: Stories of a South African Childhood” by Trevor Noah is also on the
list.

All this may seem preposterous to cat owners, but
separation anxiety is no laughing matter for dog owners. Stressed pups may bark
excessively, howl, tear up furniture, relieve themselves in the house and become
depressed.

Many dog owners just switch on the radio when they
leave home and hope for the best, but Audible cites an academic study from the
United Kingdom that found dogs actually prefer an audio book to music. Really?

The 2015 paper from Hartbury College in the west of
England titled, “The effects of audiobooks on the behaviour of dogs at rehoming
kennels,” studied the reactions of 31 dogs at a pet shelter to an audiobook, classical,
pop and “psychoacoustically designed dog music” and a control condition with no
special auditory sounds.

Researchers played two hours of auditory stimulation
at normal conversational volume from 10 a.m. to noon one day with two days
between treatments to avoid overstimulation. Dogs were also exposed to normal
kennel sounds of dogs barking and staff talking.

The audiobook was C.S. Lewis’ “The Lion, the Witch and
the Wardrobe,” book two of the children’s classic fantasy “Chronicles of
Narnia.” The British researchers deemed it “popular
amongst humans and appropriate for all ages, therefore is suitable for a range
of environments.”

Video cameras recorded the dogs’ behavior in the
various settings every five minutes.

The result: “Audiobooks resulted in dogs spending more
of their time resting or sleeping than any of the other auditory conditions.
Dogs also spent less time sitting or standing when exposed to audiobooks
compared to all other conditions,” the report said.

What about barking? There was no difference between dogs
in the control situation – with no special auditory stimulation at all – and
those listening to audiobooks.

But among auditory stimulants, the audiobook was the
most effective, even better than classical music, in reducing barking. This was
surprising because earlier tests showed classical music effective in calming a
variety of creatures, including chickens, dogs in kennels, elephants and
gorillas.

At his dog behavior center in Los Angeles, Millan also
tested audiobooks on 100 volunteer dogs for 30 days and wrote “Cesar Millan’s
Guide to Audiobooks for Dogs.”

Gender, energy and consistency are important in
choosing audiobooks for dogs, he says. For example, audiobooks seem more
effective if the reader is the same gender as the primary owner.

Leslie, a dog owner who participated in Millan’s study
with her 9-year-old dog Buddy, said when she had to leave Buddy alone before,
she felt “guilty with a capital G.”

But with an audiobook playing, “I felt like I was
leaving him with a friend, so it gave me a great feeling of comfort,” she said
in a video on the Audible site.

I might mention dog audiobooks to Paul, who apologizes
occasionally for the barking disturbance. But, frankly, it sounds as if we’d
all be better off if I found audiobooks for me to listen to when the dogs bark.

Thursday, August 3, 2017

In the White House briefing room, a senior White House
aide lectured on the Statue of Liberty.

The statue is a “symbol of American liberty lighting
the world,” senior policy adviser Stephen Miller said Wednesday. Welcoming
immigrants was only an afterthought, he suggested.

“The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus, inscribed on the
base, with its line about “your tired, your poor, your huddled masses,” was
added later, he said.

Miller was right about the timing, but why make that
historical footnote now? Because President Donald Trump intends to set the
United States on a new path regarding immigration. He wants to halve legal
immigration over a decade.

“Very, very important, Trump said of the proposal.
“Biggest change in 50 years.”

Trump sees his America First ideology in conflict with
America’s traditional role as beacon to the world’s persecuted and downtrodden.

The RAISE
(Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment) Act would slash the
number of green cards to about 500,000 annually and change the face of
immigration. Green card holders are lawful permanent residents who can live in
the country permanently and serve in the military.

The current system prizes family unification; people
who are kin to citizens get top priority. The new system would prioritize green
cards for English speakers, people who can support themselves financially and
have job skills.

Miller emphasized most voters support such changes. To
be sure, Trump’s pledges to curb illegal immigration were central to his
election. But this bill goes a step farther.

Now, legal immigration is also on
the chopping block, as it has been at various points in history.

But legal immigration should not be an us-versus-them
issue in the 21st century. We rightly celebrate hard-working legal
immigrants who follow the rules. We need immigrants to keep our economy
humming.

Democrats on Capitol Hill declared the bill a
nonstarter. Two Republican senators – Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John
McCain of Arizona – drenched the proposal in cold water.

Graham said it would hurt his state’s agriculture,
tourism and service industries. McCain told reporters he “wasn’t interested.”
Why? “Because I’m not interested.”

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce argued the bill would
hurt the economy.

“Dramatically reducing overall immigration levels
won’t raise the standard of living for Americans,” said Randy Johnson, a senior
vice president at the chamber.

“In fact it will likely accomplish the opposite,
making it harder for businesses, communities, and our overall economy to grow,
prosper and create jobs for American workers,” Johnson said.

The bill proposed by two Southern Republicans, Sens. Tom
Cotton of Arkansas and David Perdue of Georgia, has undeniable political appeal
in Trump country. But it’s helpful to think about what the RAISE bill is not.

It is not comprehensive immigration reform. It does not
address the 11 million people who entered the country illegally or guest
workers or border security or deporting “bad hombres,” in Trump’s phrase.

This is not 1986, when Congress passed and President
Ronald Reagan signed the bipartisan Immigration Reform and Control Act.

Trump is not Reagan, who said: “I believe in the idea
of amnesty for those who have put down roots and lived here, even though sometime
back they may have entered illegally.”

Reagan understood that society can’t prosper with “a
class of individuals who must hide in the shadows, without access to many of
the benefits of a free and open society.”

The 1986 law -- called Simpson-Mazzoli for sponsors
Sen. Alan Simpson, Republican of Wyoming, and Rep. Romano Mazzoli, Democrat of
Kentucky – promised a path to legalization – amnesty -- for millions of
undocumented immigrants in return for

cracking down on illegal immigration.

The law is now widely viewed as a failure. Nearly 3
million illegal immigrants did come out of the shadows, but the border remained
porous. To pass the bill, Congress jettisoned key enforcement provisions,
including penalizing employers who hired workers here illegally.

Thirty-one years later, a new president wants to
remake immigration. Surely we can do better this time around – without halving
legal immigration. Curb illegal immigration, yes, while affirming America’s role
as a beacon to the world, while helping our citizens prosper. Our future
demands no less.